By JEREMY SCHWARTZ, HEARST NEWSPAPERS

Updated 10:00 pm, Wednesday, February 2, 2005

MEXICO CITY -- It is a wedding story that has captured the imagination of this country and set tongues wagging throughout the capital.

Ever since the news broke Sunday that U.S. ambassador and Brownsville, Texas, native Tony Garza is engaged to Mexico's wealthiest woman, the heiress to the Modelo beer empire, the couple has been plastered across front pages and subject to inquiring speculations among the Mexican media.

Will the glamorous, 41-year-old Maria Asuncion Aramburuzabala move with him back to Texas and help with a possible run for governor? Will Garza, 45, become a Mexican citizen? Will he switch from his beloved tequila to Corona, the top-selling brand of the Modelo company?

For now, Garza and Aramburuzabala, already dubbed the "Golden Couple" by one of Mexico City's largest dailies, are keeping mum.

That hasn't kept the Mexican media from talking.

"Finally something agreeable, beautiful, but more than anything romantic. Hallelujah!" wrote Guadalupe Loeza in a humorous column in Tuesday's edition of La Reforma.

"Can you imagine what this means? ... Two neighbors that sometimes have their little problems but in the end still adore each other? Well sometimes they hate each other ... but now it is love that will unite them."

Tuesday, El Universal devoted almost the entire front page of its style section to the couple, complete with pictures of them snuggling at a recent event.

El Universal was the first to report the impending nuptials after learning of a wedding notice tacked onto a church near Mexico City.

The pair apparently has been dating at least six months, the paper reported.

A wedding date hasn't been set, but according to Catholic custom in Mexico, the marriage could occur within a few months.

The wedding will bring together some powerful political and economic forces.

She assumed management of the Modelo brewing group after her father died in 1995 and also holds positions with some of Mexico's largest companies, including Televisa, Telefonos de Mexico and Banamex.

Garza, a longtime confidant of President Bush's, was appointed ambassador in 2002 after serving on the Texas Railroad Commission for four years. Before that, he was then-Gov. Bush's secretary of state.

Jorge Chabat, an expert on Mexico-U.S. relations at the Center for Economic Research and Teaching, said that beyond being an interesting love story, the fact that the U.S. ambassador is taking a Mexican bride "makes the Mexican people feel proud."

Chabat said the wedding also resonates because for some it symbolizes the marriage of the two countries, bound by their common border.

A far cry from his time as railroad commissioner in Texas, when Garza rarely made headlines, Garza's role as ambassador has put him squarely under the glare of the aggressive Mexico City media.